Zero Balancing is a hands-on system of body-mind therapy which balances body energy with body structure.  Gentle and non-invasive, it is performed with the client lying fully clothed on a massage table.  Fingertip pressure and gentle traction are used to release held tension, and to align structure and energy in the bones, joints and soft tissue.

Born from an integration of East and West, ZB has its roots in both osteopathy and acupuncture.  It combines Western understanding of structure and anatomy with Eastern understanding of energy flow.

Acupuncture works by balancing the flow of qi, or vital energy, in the meridians, which flow like rivers of energy through the tissues of the body.  In Zero Balancing, the focus is on the energy system of the skeleton, and how energy moves through bone.  The practitioner develops an ability to consciously and simultaneously palpate both the energetic and structural anatomy of the body, and to distinguish held energy at the level of bone.  Zero Balancing techniques release held energy, or tension, in bone, allowing the client’s system to rebalance and reorganize.  When imbalances are corrected at the structural level, the efficacy of acupuncture is enhanced.

Acupuncture students at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine were recently introduced to some of the fundamental concepts and techniques of Zero Balancing in a short presentation, including experiential exercises and hands-on demonstration.

Donkey Leans

Students experienced a felt sense of energy and structure in another person through an exercise called donkey leans.  The name derives from the observation that donkeys will lean into each other for support while walking up hill.  Leaning fully and completely into another person is an activity that requires trust and letting go.  In leaning, each person unconsciously senses and adjusts to the other person’s energy and structure.

Liz and Brad demonstrate the side donkey lean.

Students were also introduced to a vocabulary of conscious touch, and practiced touching at interface, the form of touch used in Zero Balancing.  Interface touch is a way of touching that allows one to be connected, but still have clear awareness of energetic and physical boundaries.  It is a healthy and comfortable way to touch, for both practitioner and client, and is useful in any form of body work.

Half Moon Vector at the hips.

The presentation ended with a demonstration ZB session, and an opportunity for those who wished to receive a ZB touch technique, called the half moon vector.

Half Moon Vector at the feet

ZB touch skills can enrich any body work practice.

The half moon vector at the legs is a signature working tool of ZB.

Participants learned a short full-body integrating sequence.

If you are interested in organizing or participating in an Introduction to Zero Balancing workshop, call 503-227-2127 or email Inner Works Acupuncture.

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

–The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens

Pausing along a snowy mountain pass in Winter, life appears to have stopped.   Any sound of movement rings with clarity in the silent landscape: the icy crunch of my boots on the frost-covered road, the rushing current of ice-rimmed Minam River, the sloughing of wind in the snow-crusted pines.

One might find this frozen landscape harsh and miserable.  It appears barren, stripped of leaves and lifeless.  No bird flits in the ice-shagged bush.  No trout jumps in the glittering stream.  The pale sun brings no warmth.

The sun, the essence of yang energy and the active aspect, recedes to its furthest in winter, with long nights and short days.   Yin energy, the receptive aspect, is at its maximum.  Chinese Five Element acupuncture associates this time of year with the Water Element.  Like a snow-covered landscape, the nature of Water is elusive, impenetrable and hidden.

The mind of winter looks and listens deeply, beholding nothing that is not there.  Life has not stopped.  It has slowed down, gone below the surface and waits, dormant.  Animals slow down and hibernate.  The sap of trees moves to the root.  Seeds and nuts, fallen in the autumn, lie hidden beneath soil and rotten leaves.  An ocean of snow covers the details of the surface.  Larger features of the land — the folds of the hills, the silhouettes of trees — stand out in emphasis.

Life in this slow-moving, dark world is concentrated down to the essentials.  The mind of winter beholds the potency of the seed.  An entire life cycle lies packed in a tiny hull, awaiting the warmth of spring to trigger the release of its hidden potential.  The miracle of winter is that plants and animals do endure through this harsh and rigorous season.  The inner spirit of the Water Element is a rugged determination and will to endure through difficult times.

Water, like winter, is full of potential energy held in reserve.  The snow on the mountain is itself a reservoir of water, to be released in the spring melts, flooding the rivers and streams.  Water is also about survival.   It is vital to human life, and we can only live for a short time without an adequate amount.  For millennia humans have sought to control the flow of water with dams, reservoirs and irrigation, to ensure a steady supply.  Water is also powerful and dangerous.  Too much or too little brings disaster:  floods, tsunamis, hurricanes and droughts.  For this reason, Chinese Five Element acupuncture associates the Water Element with the emotion of fear.

Like the plants and animals, the energy of the human body-mind-spirit returns to the root in winter.  You may find that you feel more tired, depressed, or bothered by aches and pains at this time of year.  In practical terms, this is a time to get extra rest and build up reserves.  Don’t push for visible, outward results.  Trust that the work is happening inside and, like the dormant seed, will bring forth a vigorous spring.

Be cautious how you use your resources, for winter is a time of survival.  This is not a time to over-extend yourself or take on extra projects and work.

Winter is also a time for clarity and introspection.  Although the winter landscape may seem barren and lifeless, we can see the lay of the land more clearly than at any other time of year.  Likewise, our inner landscape lies bare and open to self-examination.  Situations and relationships that do not serve us may stand out as starkly as dead trees on a snowy hill.  The inner view may be disagreeable, but it holds the opportunity for healing and transformation.

The mind of winter beholds all this — the bare, frozen and harsh places in the landscape of the soul– and listens without misery to the sound of the wind that blows through the painful, the wounded and the broken parts of being.  The mind of winter beholds, accepting and not judging, nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.

The Five Elements, pen-and-ink drawing by Vanessa Couto

Gracing the mantel over the fireplace in my office is a vibrant, imaginative depiction of the cycle of the Five Elements.  Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water dance with life in the richly-colored pen-and-ink drawing:  a forest of green trees, a host of cheerful red flames, a patchwork of brown fields, a dark cavern hiding a nugget of gold, an ocean of rippling waves.  This treasured work is a commissioned piece by Brazilian-American artist, Vanessa Couto.  It is currently on loan to the Clearing Cafe, 2772 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR 97210, as part of an exhibition of Couto’s work, through the end of 2011.

The Water Element, rippling waves are depicted with fine detail.

It has been said that the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line.   Couto’s journey in developing her art has been anything but straight, in the years I have known her.  Watching from the outside, I saw her complete a masters degree in depth psychology, and then explore and search for a new direction.  Like the Water Element, for a while there did not seem to be much going on at the surface, but in reality she had turned to her own depths to find the next step on the path.  Vanessa Couto had the courage to follow her soul work and invest herself in developing her art.

What has emerged is a unique and powerful form of pen-and-ink drawing.  The brilliant palette recalls the folk art of her native land, but the style is unmistakably Couto’s.  Many of the drawings are mandalas, with themes inspired by her interests in the natural world, myth and symbol, and the archetypal forms of the collective unconscious.  Couto’s work also expresses her well-traveled life and her immersion in many cultures.  “If I had to use one noun to summarize my life it would be ‘bridge’,” she says.

Vanessa Couto’s interest in the Five Elements was inspired by her experience with acupuncture.  “Five Element acupuncture has taught me to be more attuned to the seasons and their characteristics,” she says, “I often feel that the treatment I receive goes beyond my physical being, but rather is rippling through all areas of my life.”

In addition to the Five Elements, some of the other ancient and mythical themes she depicts are her own interpretations of the tarot and astrology.  She currently accepts commissions for individual astrological charts.  She can be reached at her website, www.artbynessa.com.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, Autumn Day, gives us insight into the universal wisdom of the Metal Element in Chinese Five Element acupuncture.

“Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.

Lay your shadow on the sundials

and let loose the wind in the fields.”

Chill winds and rain return to my Oregon home, and faint grey light greets me in the morn.  Chestnut and oak trees are still golden with the last flush of autumn color, but  every breeze brings more leaves to the ground.  Nuts and acorns clatter on the damp pavement with each passing storm, and the musty smell of rotting plant life hangs in the air.

“The summer was immense.” Summer (the Fire Element) and Late Summer (the Earth Element) are seasons of immense activity and productivity.  Hot, sunny days of Summer bring vines and fruit to full size and ripeness.  Summer’s heat gives way to the gentler warmth of Late Summer, the harvest season.  Nature hums with activity as we take in the bounty.

Now, the warmth and sunshine have given way dramatically as the decline of Autumn (the Metal Element) sets in.  While we mourn the passing of gentler days, something in us knows, as Rilke says, “It is time.”  A new tiredness tells us that the activity and productivity of Late Summer have gone on long enough, and it is time to turn in and rest.

“Bid the last fruits to be full;

give them another two more southerly days,

press them to ripeness, and chase

the last sweetness into the heavy wine.”

Fruit farmers, grape growers and vintners hold out hope for a few more days of sun, yearning to capture the last richness, ripeness and sweetness in the fruit.  The harvest is always a race against time, knowing that whatever cannot be taken in and stored will rot in the fields.  It is never possible to take it all in, and we grieve what we lose of the bounty.  Chinese Five Element theory wisely sees grief as the emotional aspect of the Metal Element.

“Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.”

In Autumn, everything in nature is letting go and dying back.  This is not a time to build a new house — not only your domicile, but also the house of your body and soul.  You may not be able to push the body to do what it did a few months ago.  You may feel you need more rest.  Aches and pains, old depressions may resurface unexpectedly.  We become more porous to our inner world.  As the leaves fall from the trees and reveal the structure of branch and limb, so too are we revealed.  We can no longer distract ourselves with leaf and flower and fruit.

“Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long

time,

will stay up, read, write long letters,

and wander the avenues, up and down,

restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.”

Who among us is not alone?  To be human is to be alone, even in the midst of community.  As the energies of body/mind/spirit turn inward, we contact intimately the only person we can ever truly know, one’s own self.  The opportunity that Autumn brings, as the life force moves inward, is to introspect and regain balance with our inner lives.  We can realign ourselves through creative work, reflection and spiritual practice.

Nature wastes nothing.  The decomposition that happens in Autumn is not pointless destruction.  It is part of a cycle.  A process of refinement is occurring when dead leaves rot, returning essential minerals and nutrients to the soil.   Autumn lays the groundwork for Spring, when the richness in the soil feeds new growth, and the cycle starts anew.

The breaking down of old structures into elemental forms happens also in creative process and inner work.  The Metal Element within our energies is what allows us to recognize the value and quality of the rich, pure essences existing in the compost of the soul.  Break down is disorienting, and we may feel uncomfortably called for a time to “wander the avenues, up and down, restlessly.” Nothing lasts forever, however, and this is only a phase in the cycle of life.  Moving through it without resistance, we ready ourselves for new creativity.

References

Rainer Maria Rilke, Autumn Day, translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann, ”The Essential Rilke” (Ecco)

J.R. Worsley, Classical Five Element Acupuncture, Vol. III:  The Five Elements and the Officials.

When you are fully present, even a simple handshake touches the whole person.

“Have you ever had the experience of touching or speaking to someone and then feeling, after they left, that part of the person was still there?  As if they had left something of themselves behind?”

Everyone in the room laughed empathically when I asked this question.  They were all familiar with the experience I mentioned:  connecting to someone for healing, and then not having a clear energetic separation after the healing was done.  In the language of Zero Balancing, I explained, this is called a clean, clear disconnect.

I was addressing a group of contemplative Christian healers at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon.  This group offers healing touch and prayer at a traditional service for healing and wholeness, called Taize.  I spent 3 hours with this group on a Saturday morning, presenting and practicing touch skills and guided meditation based on Zero Balancing principles.

Although the study of Zero Balancing as a body work system is limited to health care practitioners and students, there are profound principles and skills within it that can be learned and usefully applied by anyone.  Zero Balancing has its own vocabulary of touch, which helps us to bring conscious awareness of how you touch, who you touch, and what you are touching.  With conscious awareness, you can learn to touch in a way that feels safe, comfortable and healthy for both people.

Using a guided meditation called the pyramid meditation, first we practiced bringing awareness to our breath and how it moves through the energy centers of our own bodies, and between heaven and earth.  The meditation also helped us create a clear, empowered space where we could hold each other in high regard, and learning was easy.

I talked about the metaphor of two bodies — the energy body and the structural (physical) body — and how touching the whole person means touching someone energetically as well as physically.   Energy and structure in the body are like the wind and a sailboat.  For the boat to move, the wind has to fill the sails.  This happens by aligning energy and structure, creating a clear, organized field.  When we are fully present with someone and touch the whole person, even a simple handshake brings joy and ease, and fills the sails with wind.

We practiced exercises designed to give participants an experience of touching both energy and structure, including the donkey lean, and interface touch.  You can learn more about these by reading the earlier blog posts, Learning to Lean in and Trust and Interface Touch: How to Stay Connected Without Feeling Drained.

The first yellowing of leaves marks Late Summer, the Earth Season

A soft veil dims the tender skies,

And half conceals from pensive eyes

The bronzing tokens of the fall;

A calmness broods upon the hills,

And summer’s parting dream distills

A charm of silence over all.

Henry Van Dyke

In the midst of Summer’s joy, warmth and play — the picnics, the weddings, the family reunions, trips to the beach and mountains — there comes a day when we know that Autumn is on its way.  The party is coming to an end.  The bloom is fading from the rose.   “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” (Wm. Shakespeare)

Like a toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed, we may wish to believe Summer can go on forever.  Nature tells us otherwise.  The days are shortening, and mornings are cool. The air feels humid and fragrant with the scent of ripening fruit.  The blooms of summer give way to nuts and pods.  Leaves take on a yellowing hue, like a premonition of the coming fall colors.  Ears of corn ripen on the stalk, and tomatoes redden on the vine.  Plants store the energy that they have gathered in on the long days of Summer, and form the seed that will survive the coming months of darkness and start the cycle anew.

Horse chestnuts form and begin to ripen in Late Summer.

This is Late Summer, the season of the Earth Element and the time of harvest.  The ancient Chinese divided the year into five seasons rather than four, and regarded Late Summer as a distinct phase of its own.  Summer, the season of the Fire Element, represents the peak of activity and Yang energy.  Late Summer begins as Yang energy starts to decline and Yin energy begins to increase.

Late Summer is time to gather the harvest while we can.

Late Summer is time to gear down.  Like plant life, the energy of the human body/mind/spirit is turning inward.  There is still an abundance of activity, but it is not directed towards new growth.  Energy is spent on gathering in the harvest while there is still time, so that we may feel secure and nourished, with plenty of reserves to carry us through the Winter months.  If we are too busy and ignore the inward shift, we can easily overextend ourselves at this time of year, leaving us more vulnerable to illness when the cold and flu season begins.

Late Summer is time to gear down.  Overextending can leave us vulnerable to illness when the cold and flue season arrives.

In Summer, life is in full bloom.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare

Warmth, joy, connection and love are the gifts of Summer and the Fire Element.

In Spring, we experienced the essence of the Wood Element.  Regeneration, birth, and the sense of hope that comes with new beginnings are at the heart of Spring, and are embodied by the image of plant life bursting forth with new growth.   Wood energy is directed toward making plans, setting goals and planting new seed.

In Summer, the hard work of Spring matures.  The crops are in the garden, the flowers are in full bloom, and there is nothing more to be done except pull a few weeds and wait for the fruit to form.  It’s time to relax and enjoy the warm weather and long, sunny days.

Yang energy — characterized by activity, warmth, light, and outwardness — reaches its peak in Summer.   The Chinese ideogram, yang 暘, means “sun,” and there is no better image for the Fire Element than the sun itself.  The sun is at its zenith in Summer, and it is time to let ourselves open up and be bathed in its warmth.

Play, friendship and joy manifest the Fire Element within us.

Warmth and human connection also abound in Summer, as we busy ourselves with weddings, picnics, festivals and every manner of outdoor recreation.  The maturation that we see in the garden plants during Summer is taking place within our body/mind/spirit, too.  The fun of Summer — ease, joy, friendship and play — creates the warmth that transforms us and opens our hearts to love.  This love is the inner sun that we carry with us throughout the year.

The room grew quiet and peaceful as thirty-four massage therapists and students, standing in pairs, leaned shoulder-to-shoulder or back-to-back against each other.  ”Lean in completely to your partner, so that both of you are off center and support each other from falling,” I instructed them, “Trust the other person.  Leaning requires you to over-ride the information that you are unstable, and trust that you are stable.  When you lean into each other, you are contacting both the energy body and the physical body of the other person. Leaning involves communication, relationship and instinct.  Leaning is a shared experience.”

As each pair of students let go and leaned in to each other, sighs of relaxation could be heard throughout the room.  The sensation of support and connection that comes with touching the whole person brought feelings of ease and joy.

This roomful of healers, gathered at the Oregon School of Massage, were practicing an exercise from Zero Balancing, called “donkey leans.”  Fritz Smith, M.D., the founder of Zero Balancing, was fascinated to observe that donkeys will lean into each other for support as they walk up a hill.  He used this image of the leaning donkeys as a metaphor to convey how we can touch both energy and structure in another person, one of the hallmarks of Zero Balancing.

Dr. Fritz Smith and teacher trainee Patrick Dorsey demonstrate donkey leans

The “donkey leans” exercise was part of a 1.5-hour continuing education workshop I led at the Oregon School of Massage on Monday, July 25, entitled Interface Touch:  a Bodywork Skill from Zero Balancing. The workshop used presentation, hands-on exercises and meditation to convey an understanding of energy and structure in the body, and relate it to different forms of touch.  Interface touch is a technique of touch, used in Zero Balancing, which creates connection while still maintaining a clear sense of boundaries between self and other.

Touching energy and structure simultaneously, and the ability to touch at interface, are skills that have wider application to other bodywork modalities.  I am grateful and excited to have had the opportunity to present this material to massage therapist at the Oregon School of Massage, and see it so well-received by a wider audience.

Additional Reading:

Elizabeth Zenger.  Interface Touch:  How to Stay Connected without Feeling Drained.

Lisa Berger.  Thriving at Interface.

Oregon School of Massage.  Interface Touch: a Skill from Zero Balancing.

Seasonal crossroads are times of transformation in the inner and outer worlds.

Adams Community Garden is an oasis of quiet tucked back from Cornell Road, a busy commuter thoroughfare between the City of Portland and its western suburbs.  The Garden lies in the embrace of Forest Park, a miles-long wooded area within the City limits.  In this peaceful, sylvan setting, I tend a small vegetable plot, and pay attention as the seasons change in both the garden and the surrounding woods.

Peas, arugula, spinach, lettuce, mustard greens.  An exceptionally cool, wet Spring has held back the tomatoes, but benefited the greens.  Mid-June, the air is still cool and damp.  Oregon folk wisdom has it that Summer in western Oregon doesn’t start until the Fourth of July.

Looking more deeply at the woods and land around me, I see something different.  Despite the cool temperatures, the weedy paths and undergrowth are filling in and taking on a lush, full look.  Berry bushes are blooming and beginning to set fruit. The humid smell of plant life hangs in the air.  All this tells me that Summer, and the Fire Element, are not far away.  Spring, and the Wood Element, are taking a slow leave.

In the West, we follow the solar calendar and regard the Solstice as the “official” first day of Summer.  The “real” first day of Summer is found by opening our senses to nature right where we are.  Each season and each place has its own signature that says “Summer is here” –  the croaking of frogs in the pond, the smell of ripe berries, the flash of fire flies in the night meadow.

Five Element Acupuncture treatment changes with the seasons.

The human body/mind/spirit also changes with the seasons, and Five Element acupuncture treatment changes accordingly.  In the energetic interplay of Yin/Yang, Spring and Summer are the seasons of rising Yang.  Energy moves upward and outward in Spring.  Typically, people become more active and feel more energetic and resilient as the season progresses.

As Spring transitions to Summer, the increasing Yang energy begins to mature and reach its fulfillment.  Summer is a time when people are typically out and about, taking on a lot of activities, and enjoying the long days and sunshine.  These are all hallmarks of the Fire Element.

Seasonal transitions are energetic crossroads.

Seasonal and Elemental shifts are energetic crossroads that bring a transformation to both the outer and the inner world.  They are not seamless, smooth and invisible.  Each Element has its distinct qualities, and we may feel turbulence moving from one to the next.  Like reaching a crossroads on a journey, we notice the change in our body/mind/spirit.  Crossroads may also be places where we face choices.

Clinically, I often see people struggle or even reach crises as the body/mind/spirit responds to seasonal and Elemental transitions.  There may be a few days or a week in my practice when nearly every client seems to come in with significant problems.  One person may complain of a sudden recurrence of migraines that she hasn’t had in years.  Another may finally realize it is time to leave the job she dislikes.  Imbalances and disharmonies among the acupuncture meridians and the Officials (the entities governing our energy system) tend to come to the surface when the cosmos is in turmoil.   If the Fire Element in nature is struggling to take hold, is it surprising that the Fire official within us might struggle, too?

Future articles will discuss the Fire Element and the cycle of the Five Elements in more detail.